Nintendo DSi Interim Report

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It's been 90 days since the launch of the system. Let's see where it stands.

By Craig Harris

As of yesterday, the Nintendo DSi has been on the market in North America for three full months now. The upgraded system launched on April 5th, 2009 to modest success – it was hard not to excited for the new platform, as the new system offered a flurry of potential: two built-in cameras, internal storage, an SD card slot are among the additions over the immensely successful DS Lite system that's been on the market since 2006, which was a vast improvement over the original DS design released in November of 2004.

But in the three months since the system's North American debut, have we seen the critical mass leaping to buy the system? Sales figures over the past 90 days show that, while the Nintendo DSi is a modest success, it's not exactly setting the videogame world ablaze and we've heard word from the development circles that the DSi hasn't sold as well as Nintendo has hoped it would. Granted, the system launched after the lucrative Christmas holiday season, so we'll have to wait until the full one-year anniversary to really make the call whether the DSi is a true success or a simple blip on the scope.

Here's how things look from the first 90 days.

What Nintendo Did Right

For the North American premiere, Nintendo made sure that the public knew about the Nintendo DSi system. The company made a media push on TVs, billboards, magazines, and newspapers. Nintendo even held a launch event to generate a good amount of buzz, both on the East Coast at its Nintendo World Store in New York City and the GameStop at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles.

Television commercials hit the air shortly before the launch of the system that, at least in our opinion, were aimed at the right people: college stoners. After all, we all know that the cameras will already attract the "cute" and "girly" crowd, so Nintendo made sure to push a focus on the slacker crew in its successful ad campaign.

Another step in the right direction: releasing multiple colors of the system in North America. This was the first time the company released a DS system with a choice of hues: for the US owners, we got Black and Blue. Perhaps it was a symbolic choice, with the company sending the message that it would violently bruise anyone who got in the way of its DSi system. Realistically, though, it was simply offering a choice for the manly or not-so-manly. Nintendo of America broke with its tradition of sticking with a single system color for at least the first six months – by putting multiple systems on the market, retailers have to gamble and order the right amount of all colors, running the risk of not buying the more popular unit and running out. Thankfully, the DSi was in ample supply and this didn't happen.

Finally, Nintendo of America offered the same incentive that Nintendo in Japan did with the launch of the Nintendo DSi: free points to purchase Nintendo DSiWare titles. All that new owners need to do is to connect their Nintendo DSi system to a compatible Wi-Fi hotspot and those 1000 points would be theirs to do as they please. The packaging made sure that you knew there was a free 1000 points to be had: a great big sticker slapped on the front of the box was hard to miss.

Though people who wanted a Nintendo DSi had to pony up 40 dollars more over the cost of a Nintendo DS Lite, that 1000 points was a nice incentive and soothed the burn.